What's in a study?

Beneath the politics of consolidating Lansing police operations, a web of studies and planning

The Bernero administration is forging
ahead with plans to move its Police Department into the old National
Guard Armory, despite a nearly finished study that suggests at least one
more option: the current North Precinct building.

Moreover, the owner of the North Precinct
is willing to sell, which would satisfy one of the administration’s
objectives: no longer paying rent.

“We’ve said we’re perfectly happy to do
build-outs and sell it,” said Harry Hepler, resident agent of Summit
Street Development Co. LLC, which owns the building. The city already
owns the old armory, now called the South Washington Office Complex, at
2500 S. Washington Ave. The state sold it last year for $1, but as part
of that deal, the city had to pay $22,000 for an adjacent piece of land.

The study, which began in 2010, cost
$175,000, Chad Gamble, the city’s chief operating officer, said. The
administration has been sitting on preliminary data since at least
December, before former Finance Director Jerry Ambrose left the city to
work on the emergency manager team in Flint, said Kevin Feuka, business
development manager at C2AE, the firm that conducted the study.

But the administration has been preparing
for consolidation since 2008, when it began appropriating money from
the General Fund for consolidation studies. In total, the administration
says less than $200,000 has actually been spent on plans. The upcoming
fiscal year appropriation would more than triple that and go beyond
studies to actual design work. In other words, the beginning of moving
to the armory.

Nearly everyone at City Hall agrees on
the need to move police operations into one building that the city owns —
not rents, as it does for more than $300,000 a year at its North
Precinct on May Street between Saginaw Street and Oakland Avenue, just
west of Pennsylvania Avenue. Police administration and the jail are at
City Hall downtown. The South Precinct will hopefully be completely
empty by June, said Police Chief Teresa Szymanski.

But the administration has encountered
Council opposition in the past week on several fronts: On its desire to
use about 7 percent of police millage revenue (approved by voters in
November) for upfront architectural and design costs; on its apparent
decision to settle on the South Washington Office Complex when another
location is on the table; and on the fact that the city has annually
appropriated money since 2008 on consolidation plans that have seemingly
turned up little more than an incomplete study.

Gamble would not release the preliminary study to City Pulse until City Council members all had a chance to review it.

“What is problematic is this is the first
time I’m hearing we’re ready to go on something,” Council President
Brian Jeffries said during a Police Department budget hearing Monday
night. He added that he “didn’t even know” a firm was hired to do the
study. Lansing-based architectural and planning firm C2AE conducted the
study. “I’d like to see a copy of whatever it is you have done so I can
be brought up to speed on this.”

Gamble said the report essentially
suggests two buildings — the former armory or the current North Precinct
— and a variety of renovation options for either of those buildings.
But no one from the administration has entertained the idea publicly of
buying out the space it’s leasing for the North Precinct. When asked if
it’s 100 percent certain that the city will move into the former armory,
Gamble said: “I think that is high on our priorities.” And there are
benefits to the armory, Gamble said: It’s at the “geographical center of
the city,” the city owns it, and at the North Precinct there are
“building maintenance issues we’re trying to get figured out.”

“We want to make an investment,” Gamble said, “but make it smart.”

The former armory was built in the early
1960s and includes about 95,000 square feet of floor area, property
records show. The North Precinct is about 24,000 square feet.

As for “building maintenance issues” at the North Precinct, those are disputed by Hepler, the landlord.

On maintenance issues, Hepler said the
administration’s position is analogous to proving a perfectly good car
is faulty as a way to justify buying a new car. The Lansing State
Journal reported late last month that Lansing Police Capt. Mike
Yankowski signed an affidavit saying, in part, that the precinct “has
had serious roof leaks for not less than the past five (5) years.” While
that’s resulted in “55 separate complaints since 2007, even then, the
North Precinct roof has not been repaired,” according to the affidavit.

Hepler said it has been repaired. Steve
Purchase, president of the property management company, H Inc., then
produced an email from Yankowsi on March 26, 17 days after Yankowski
signed the affidavit, saying: “No reported leaks from over the weekend
that I’m aware of.”

“I went up on the 10th floor of City Hall
for the first time in three years,” Hepler said in his office Friday
about attending the prior Monday’s City Council meeting. “I looked up
and counted 28 leaky ceiling tiles. People in glass houses … .”

The State Journal also reported that
Summit Street Development had to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after
being accused of defaulting on a loan worth more than $5 million. Hepler
said the original bank that issued the loan was taken over by the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and that the new Ohio-based bank, First
Financial, refused to extend it after the loan came to a term end. “Then
suddenly out of nowhere, this affidavit.”

Szymanski, chief of the LPD, said the
idea of separate precincts goes back to the Hollister administration,
when studies showed the importance of having a larger neighborhood
presence.

“The decentralizing of services has
served its purpose,” Szymanski told the Council. “The time has come to
consolidate into one building. We have heard from front line officers
and detectives that this greatly enhances our ability to coordinate with
one another. I’ve also heard from community members that paying rent is
a waste of money and that it’s time to get out of leases.”